My name is Keith Giles. I love to write so that people can know Jesus and experience His life in their own.
So, I started this blog to help people understand who Jesus is, and how He reveals what the Father is really like.
This is a safe place to talk about all those questions you've had about the Bible, and Christianity. It's also a place to learn how to put the words of Jesus into practice.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Trust: The Key To Everything [Part 3 of 3]

Here are some possible barriers we might face when it comes to fully trusting God:

*We don't really know God.
If we really knew God, we would have no problem trusting Him. I believe this is why God sends trouble and difficulty into our lives. When things are going well we tend to ignore God, but when we are in financial difficulty or walking through uncertainty, we are suddenly desperate for God to rescue us. Whereas our goal during these trials may be to coerce God into making the pain go away, I believe God's goal during this time is simply to teach us that He can be trusted.

Time and again my family has been through crisis after crisis. Each time God has come through miraculously, and yet this fact is lost on me when that "next crisis" occurs. I still find myself wondering, "Will God rescue us this time? What if this time is different?" I believe that God wants us to come to a place where we immediately trust Him whenever we face trials. For now I still find myself freaking out first and then remembering to trust Him later.

*We have a fear of letting go.
I spent most of last year as an unemployed "temporary" worker. This made our financial future quite uncertain and called for us to daily trust God with everything. I can remember clearly the epiphany I had a few months into this ordeal- "If God is in control, that means that I am not." I needed to learn to be ok with being out of control so that God could be in control. This takes courage. It's not easy.

One of my favorite books of all time is "Let Go" by Fenelon. It's only a 99 page book, but the wisdom and spiritual insight found inside is solid gold. The overall theme, as you might guess from the title, is to remind us to let go of our lives and surrender fully to Christ. God knows that we need to develop a deeper sense of trust with Him and He is patient with us as we slowly learn that loving Him means trusting Him.

*We think we know what's really best.
Sometimes I believe we find it hard to trust God simply because we're pretty sure we already know what we want with our lives. God's ideas might not line up with our plans and letting go, trusting Him completely, will probably mean laying that dream (or that plan or hope, etc.) on the altar.

*We don't want Gods intervention in our lives.
Some of us aren't entirely comfortable with the idea of God running our lives as He sees fit, however this is what the Gospel of Jesus is all about. We're called to surrender our lives to Christ. We are expected to die to ourselves daily and put the words and teachings of Jesus into practice. The idea of living life "our way" and ignoring the clear instruction of Jesus is anti-Christian. God does not want to be your Co-Pilot. He is either "Lord" or you are living your life your own way. For many of us, our biggest problem is that we've not understood the "death to self" portion of the Gospel.

THE KEY TO TRUST IS COMPLETE SURRENDER
I know you probably believe in God and the Bible. You've probably received Jesus into your heart. But the Gospel is about giving up your life and allowing God to have His perfect will, even if it goes against your beautiful plans.

Do you feel like God is really calling the shots in your life right now? Is Jesus really your Lord or is He just your Savior? If you want to call yourself a follower of Jesus, you have to let go of your life, your way of living, and surrender everything to Him.

"Then (Jesus) said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it." - Luke 9:23-24

REMEMBER THIS
As long as you are in the drivers seat of your life, you will always be miserable.

God isn't interested in having you believe in Him. He wants you to trust Him to make the decisions in your life. He wants to have your permission to allow Him to change your behavior.

God wants to be God, which should come as little surprise. He designed your life (and my life) to work best that way. I know in my life I've learned that it doesn't work when "Keith is Lord". That's when things get really screwed up.

But, if we can let go and trust God with our entire life, if we can make a total surrender to God and let Him lead us, that's what The Gospel is all about. That's when He can really transform us into something amazing.

This is why Jesus urges us to pray by saying, "Our Father who is in Heaven, Hallowed be Your Name. Your Kingdom come. Your will be done. On Earth (right now) as it is in Heaven..."

Its all about depending completely on God.

To fully trust God we must first fully surrender to Him. It's crucial for us to raise the white flag and let go of our way of doing life.

About Me

Keith is an author, advertising copywriter, blogger, activist, and servant of Jesus living in Orange County, California.
Since 2006, he and his family have been part of a house church that gives away 100% of all offerings to the poor in their community.
Please download Keith's books for free or purchase online at the links below.